#into his framework

[straightlightyagami]

people who don’t know much about a subject and have trouble expressing themselves but have a level of open-mindedness and curiosity about the world and the bare minimum of critical thinking skills are infinitely better to talk to than someone who learned a bunch of big words and can say stupid things eloquently but has dogshit reasoning ability and absolutely no interest in listening to anyone else

[egophiliac]

Where can you play ride kamens? It looks fun looking at your blog but idk where to play

it'll doesn't start until the 30th, but there's some pre-release episodes/character bits that are scattered around the website and twitter! (the links to pre-reg/download are also on the website :D)

honestly I'm really enjoying it just based off of the pre-release stuff, these characters look like they're going to be exactly that blend of ridiculous and emotionally constipated that hits me so right.

[sunderwight]

Nie Huaisang pulling a Jaskier where somehow everyone thinks he's physically tiny, because of how he tailors his clothes and the way he moves and acts and refers to himself, but in actuality he's almost the same height and shoulder width as Nie Mingjue and the impression of him as "just a little guy" is a carefully crafted illusion that would shatter if the main cast all lined up naked together.

[space-mouse]

seeing people consider their own critical thinking skills in response to Plagiarism and You(tube), i'd like to share the SOAPSTone analysis framework i learned in AP lang & comp.

Speaker: who is this person? what are their credentials? any obvious motivations, personal or financial?

Occasion: when did the speaker say/write this thing? yesterday? a decade ago? was it for a specific event, or perhaps part of a larger series?

Audience: who did the speaker expect their message to reach? a certain age group? a specific fanbase? people with certain political opinions?

Purpose: why did the speaker say/write what they did on this occasion? what did they want the audience to think or do in response to their message?

Subject: what is the speaker talking about? is there a reason to take them seriously on this topic? why did they bring it up on this occasion?

Tone: how did the speaker choose to address their target audience? as a friend? a supplicant? an authority? why did the speaker choose this tone?

[canisalbus]

When did Machete realize he was gay? Was it only when he met Vasco, or was it earlier and he just repressed it?

If you asked him, he might admit that in retrospect he must've had a vague inkling earlier (thinking of all the times he let his gaze linger on a painting of some handsome nobleman a little longer. Which almost makes it like... a 16th century equivalent of having a secret fictional crush). But I think it probably would've been more of a detached, aesthetic attraction than anything he recognized as distinctly gay, bad and worth of repressing. It's not a sin to quietly appreciate art and the beauty of the human form.

I'd say Vasco, his best friend at the time, was most likely the first real person he had actual feelings for. The realization was so distressing he stayed in denial about the whole thing for a good while.

[ursulaklegay]

what they don't tell you about unlearning the harmful, discriminatory, hierarchical systems of our society is that the hard thing is deconstructing all that shit, but the harder thing is dealing with the fact that most people around you still believe and act within these frameworks

[shrimpchipsss]

professor shen qingqiu, the most confusing man in academia

(redraw of that indiana jones scene)

[achingly-shy]

ALSO the end of the episode when jemma is telling fitz that he’s the real hero because he was beside her the whole damn time in the lab and was giving her hope when she had none and then she kisses his cheek and walks away and he sits there smiling and then that smile slowly turns into more of a thinking contemplating oh shit face AND THEN HE KNOWS HE NEVER GOT OVER IT HE NEVER GOT OVER HER

[valtsv]

i gotta talk about my low empathy james fitzjames headcanon actually. i prommy i don't use it to excuse any of the acts of violence he committed against his fellow man (not just the colonialism either, but things like the petty rivalry with crozier that borders on bullying prior to the death of franklin) because as a low empathy person i know that's not how it works. but i do think that viewing his actions through a lens of understanding that both circumstances such as his birth and being a part of the british empire as well several choices he's made in life (particularly his sycophantic attitude towards those in positions of greater authority whose favour can work in his and his participation in active combat) have led him to become broadly alienated from other people and both their and his own emotions makes them more interesting.

[zukosdualdao]

i will never understand when people act like zutara shippers are reaching when we say the crystal catacombs scene is intensely romantically coded because like... ignoring literally all other context (which does have other hallmarks of romantic coding, but literally pretend you don't know anything about the show or scene for a second)... what would you think happened in this picture?

would it .... would it maybe be an interrupted almost-kiss

[cdroloisms]

Cdream be like: You can't put yourself in the Prison anymore bc of the woke >:(/lh

That man is a mess like it's facinating how messy his vision of reality is for others and himself

it is fascinating fr, and does remind me of how we'd talk a little bit about how his perspective may betray what kind of environment this guy might've been in pre-dsmp. the stick-up-his-ass about rules and rule-following, the neuroticism about conflict, and the ease with which he jumps to punishment as being the appropriate response to people who cause problems (a perspective that, quite evidently, to a certain extent, does apply to himself, doesn't it?) all seems quite indicative of someone who lived in an environment where punishment being the natural consequence of stepping outside the lines was generally something that went unquestioned. of course, this is speculative, and it's not that a #tragicbackstory is necessary to explain what the fuck is up with c!Dream, and it's hardly about justifying the choice to abuse a teenager into behaving, lmao. but while exile served his goals and exile was a lot of petty, spiteful cruelty for petty, spiteful reasons, i do think there's something to be said about how clearly c!Dream hadn't expected c!Tommy to respond quite so severely to exile and how he thought he would be "fine" with potatoes in the prison and the language he used both about exile and his own early prison stay about shit like "getting better" through punishment. of course, punitive justice as a norm is kind of ingrained in our own society (just look at the rhetoric around deserving in this fandom, lmao, which speaks more than well enough for itself) and of course that reflects onto the dream smp as well, considering how many of the characters talk quite freely about the idea of punishment/deserving/what have you, but few characters are quite as obviously a stickler for rule-following as c!dream and exile and then prison are uhhh definitely on the more extreme end of things. anyway. just some food for thought

[eddiegettingshot]

i will stop complaining now but trulyyyyyy what gets me is that. yes i have my own little fanon things but ultimately the largely-accepted fanon characterization is never as interesting as what’s actually happening on the show in canon. especially with regards to eddie’s sexuality!

[spocks-kaathyra]

r u even a nerd unless ur putting clips of ur favorite character through a phonetic analysis program and swooning over their plosives

[ofbreathandflame-archive]

(heavy discussions on sa - this is actually an older post that i made like months ago, and was actually the first draft of the amarantha taboo post, so some things sound similar! just a heads up!)

you know i actually think there is a wider discussion to be had about rhysand's sexual assault - or sexual assault and trauma as it functions in the wider narrative. ive always felt that bc the story puts rhysand in this vulnerable position (i.e. a victim of sexual violence) the story always needs to like...make up for it, if that makes sense? 

what i mean is: the story creates this dynamic where rhysand is a victim; he has no power, control, or say - but it also has a very hard time reconciling to the fact that he was placed in this position. and so there's these weird placeholding pieces of information that often addle or confuse the narrative. and i talked about this before with rhysand's framing of his 'service to amarantha.' i also contributes to the moments of hyperviolence with rhys in the books, as if he constantly has to make up for the fact he was placed into these vulnerable positions in the first, implicitly.

the first book - and other books thereafter - imply that rhysand's court is specificially shielded from amarantha because he aligns himself (action word). rhysand's decision is framed as a 'sacrifice' which implies a choice (that he didn't really have). it always implies that rhysand is the one consciously 'one-upping' amarantha by 'agreeing' to be her 'right hand man' again - notice how despite the fact amarantha is characterized as a sexual deviant, she's rarely the focus. its what rhys 'gave' and not what 'amarantha did.'  

and this is fine if this is the way rhysand chooses to see what happened to him - bc then that's a trauma response. he can't acknowledge it so its better for him to rationalize it - that would have been great writing. 

but thats not how his sexual assault and role utm is discussed. 

other characters view rhys sexual assault as a statement of heroism (which ew) and not a just a statement of amarantha's capacity for sexual violence. tarquin literally says something along those lines. which again is implying that RHYS HAD A CHOICE. we can't frame this as heroism. he was raped, he did not sacrifice something...it was taken. 

in the initial scenario - where we remove the idea of autonomy (e.g. the idea that rhys purposely aligns himself with amarantha) he's a victim. but then - so is tamlin, tarquin, beron, kallias, and helion. in short - rhys being taken advantage of says nothing about him. it's a statement on amarantha's cruelty. but the story isn't satisfied with this bc...how would he be any different than tamlin whose vilified for being directly affected by his trauma, who 'sat on his ass for fifty years' as the book says. 

its the tragedy of how male sexual assault is rationalized in this series. the story literally purposely sets up a mirror position where rhys and tamlin are consistently compared for how they work through some of the craziest trauma ever known to man. the level of trauma the story is asking these characters to 'overcome' is actually quite insane. 

so the story ups the ante, it doesn't want rhys to be 'just a victim,' it wants him to be the MAN TM. bc tamlin and tarquin are 'just victims' so ewww. like even lucien is given another horribly written experience with sexual assault (which it literally has to bend the worldbuilding to accomplish) and then kind of position his complaints abt ianthe as whiny. or how tarquin's trauma is...not 'dark' enough for feyre. these men are often characterized as cowardly or not enough in relation to rhys. helion, thesan, tarquin, and tamlin are all consistently characterized as 'cowards' with little to no initiative or backbone.

so the story does that thing where it provides impossible situations: rhysand is the most powerful being in the world, he's so powerful that even without his 'real' power, he's still light years more powerful than the others when they're powers are ripped away. he can read minds, and has two wraiths that can literally walk through the walls and spy. he's often sent on missions on behalf of amarantha and can waltz in and out of the spring court without any issues (ie. its easy for him to convince amarantha he needs to go to the spring court multiple times. and then when he works for amarantha - he's the mastermind, not her. he's playing her all along and blah blah blah). but then it doesn't know how to write this dynamic with rhys and amarantha. and then it depowers him, while shaming the other men in the series for not doing 'enough' even when the most op character with all of those advantages isn't even able to over power her.

there's little introspection into amarantha as a character and as a villain -- and you'll notice she's hardly ever mentioned after the first book...despite the fact that she was literally the high queen of prythian and was the governing oppressive force for a half-century. as said in this post - the story isn't actually concerned about making a point about male sexual asault.

and that's why i talked about why that amarantha taboo is...kind of important to how the story chooses to conceptualize sexual violence/assault. the choice to create amarantha (and ianthe and maeve too) as these caricatures of sexuality - which is pretty much the case of all of sjm's villains. 

the story doesn't want to fully commit to a tactical scenario, because it doesn't believe that he's a victim in that capacity  - or at least that the victimhood is valid. bc its spends so much time invalidating the male trauma around rhys, the only way to make a distinction between rhys and the others to have rhys "orchestrate" his own assault to save everyone.

[wurmwizzard]

two jo wips and a dead pen dragon

[monstermoviedean]

i was prepared to re-evaluate my love for dean and my confidence in understanding his character and his actions but the closer i get to the end the more i believe in him.